The adventures of Gary and Carolyn living aboard and continuously cruising the uk canals and rivers on narrowboat Inca

Thursday, 6 August 2015

Ticked the box

We pulled pins at dead on 07.00 with our travelling companions for the day Neil and Ann on NB Heartsease. I think they were just as keen as us to get down through all of those 14 hard heavy locks in one day.One good thing on this canal is these gates for slowing down cyclists. With good towpaths the bikes go at unbelievable speeds and it wont be long before there is a serious accident . Maybe they could install these on every towpath in the country at 50 foot intervals …. That would certainly slow the buggers down.With most of the industry gone at least the remaining chimneys serve a good purpose as mobile phone masts.Passing through Long Eaton and getting near to the end of our cruise and I just love it when you travel alongside a busy road. I often wave to the passing cars and usually get a good response from them.As we are very close to Derby I take it this is meant as a tribute to Brian Clough.After 7 hours we finally make it down to Trent lock and decide to moor above the lock for the night .It was a good decision to share the locks and with great company from Neil and Ann it made life a lot easier. The first job after mooring was to clear all of the crap off the propeller.With the clear water it makes a change as you can see what you are doing We have had more stuck around the prop before ,but I have never struggled as much as this. It ended up taking me over an hour of cutting ,Sawing and struggling like you know what. As well as cloth there was fishing line ,rope and metal wire. To say the air was blue with bad language was an understatement, although that's normally like me !!!!!It was then chill time and a walk along The River Trent ,And then an Apple ripple ice cream in the cafe next to the lock.
I will have to admit that we are both glad in a way to be off of the Erewash canal. Every other visiting boater that we have met has said exactly the same . “We have done it ,ticked the box and got the tee shirt and will not be back.We even spoke to a couple who broke down at Ilkeston, They had thrown a belt on their engine and were waiting for an engineer to come and repair it . While they were there they had a visit by a police officer who told them it was not advisable to moor around here.
The Erewash canal has 14 locks and is nearly 12 miles long. But in all of those 12 miles we have only seen a very few boats moored on the towpath side which I think tells you something.We were told that it was safe to moor at the start and the end of the canal , but anywhere in-between you need to be a little bit careful and have your wits about you . I think all the bad press about the Erewash is always there in the back of your mind and does put you off a bit. I would not tell any other boaters not to do the canal as it certainly has its good points and I know of several boaters that love it , but for us we've done it and ticked the box and most likely will not do it again
Now onto the next leg of our journey and a day or two on the River Soar……….
Happy Days